Didn’t have a good experience writing for films: Martin Amis

Sunday, Nov 20, 2016,12:58 ISTBy Metrovaartha AAA

Mumbai | Acclaimed British author Martin Amis says he never enjoyed writing screenplays as he didn’t find them descriptive in nature.

While Amis has inspired many current generation novelists with his book, there are only a couple of screenplays penned by him and the author says that is because he feels they are bland and don’t require writer to do much.

“I never had a good experience writing screenplays. Film writing is actually quite easy because there is no description involved, you just write dialogues. Poetry, fiction are very different. In fact, film writing is not ‘writing’ in that sense.
“Now, dialogues can either be difficult or easy. But there’s nothing more to it,” Amis said in an interview.

The writer, known for bestselling works like “Money” and “London Fields”, says it is not necessary that every novelist eventually moves towards screenplay writing.

Pointing out another difference between film writing and book writing, Amis, whose book “The Rachel Papers” was adapted into a movie, says that the latter is solitary and personal, whereas penning for films involve collaborative effort.

“One doesn’t have to get into film writing if he or she is a novelist. Wriring a book involves only the writer, it is solitary. When it comes to films, it becomes a collaboration.
You talk to people, then producers have to like what you have written…”

As someone who has been active for three-decades, Amis has seen the literary culture go through a lot of changes. One of the recent change is the boom of social media, which has made space for terms like ‘quick write-ups’ and blogging.

“People don’t expect things, written on the internet, to be true. It has made people impressionable. It has loosened things up. People are losing the sense of reality. They can be deceived, thanks to the internet,” he says.

Amis was in the city for the Tata Literature Live Festival, where he was one of the speakers.
Talking about India, the novelist says that being a young nation, it takes more interest in literature than many other countries.

“I saw such high levels of questions from the audience here. It showed they are passionate about literature and care about it. In England, writing is not taken seriously.

“But India is a young country, it has the self-awareness a young person has. So, there is more inclination towards language and literature.”